


The Seventh Dancing Princess

by meretricula



Category: 12 Dancing Princesses (Fairy Tale), Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-01
Updated: 2009-11-01
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:45:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meretricula/pseuds/meretricula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prima was, in her own way, rather pleased by the curse. All well and good for her, Septima thought crossly when she heard their father's proclamation regarding the reward for uncursing his daughters; whatever man managed to figure it out would clearly choose either the eldest or the youngest, and as the youngest was <i>twelve</i>, unless he was a disgusting pedophile he would choose the eldest. Meanwhile, Septima would never see sixteen again, and her chances of finding a husband who even recognized her as an individual rather than one-twelfth of one, let alone liked her, were even smaller now that she was one-twelfth of a cursed conglomerate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Seventh Dancing Princess

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aradiachiba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aradiachiba/gifts).



> Written for Aradiachiba

 

 

Septima was the seventh of twelve daughters, and in the way of middle children everywhere, she was passed over quite often in favor of her oldest sister, Prima, or her youngest, Duodecima. She suspected sometimes, when she had to do without a toy or dress that she had particularly wanted because one of her siblings had wanted it first and she was feeling especially uncharitable, that this had little to do with their actual personalities (since they were, after all, princesses, and who really cared what their personalities were like? Everyone would say that they were sweet and kind and modest even if they manifestly weren't) or their looks (and everyone always said that each sister was prettier than the last no matter which way you counted, but Septima wasn't stupid, and _someone_ had to be the ugliest. For everyday purposes, Quinta would serve, since no matter how good-looking she was, no one would ever be able to tell behind her thick-rimmed glasses) so much as the fact that no one, not even their parents, could really distinguish among the middle sisters; it was just easier to say "the eldest" or "the youngest" and leave it at that. Nobody wanted to say "the sixth" or "the eighth" or "the eleventh" - even though that was what their parents had named them. 

Their mother the queen had died when Duodecima was a baby. The romantics all sighed and murmured what a pity it was for the poor princesses to grow up without a mother's love. Septima could have told them what difference the queen's death made: now there was an iron-clad excuse for her neglect. Bearing twelve children left precious little time for mothering them, and on the rare occasions when she was neither nursing nor abed, she'd clung to her husband's side. Septima, Sexta and Octava, who had all been born within a space of just over two years and so shared a nursery, had been convinced until Septima turned five that their nursemaid was their mother, and the grand lady who had sometimes come into their room to pat them on the head and call them good little girls was a lunatic maiden aunt. Prima had cried at the funeral, but then, Prima had a stronger sense of propriety than the rest of the sisters. She'd cried because she thought she should, not because she was sad. 

Duodecima was twelve when the curse began. Decima, who at age fourteen was in the middle of her adolescent obsession with magic, was the first one to observe that it was a curse, and not a shared recurring hallucination; at first, Sexta and Quarta were convinced that some sort of rodents were chewing on their shoes at night, and refused to get out of bed before their bolder sisters checked underneath to make sure nothing would come scurrying out. Tertia, the most practical of them all, suggested that they start wearing riding boots to bed, since even if they did try to sleepwalk their way into slippers, they wouldn't fit, and a few nights of dancing would have no effect on boots, no matter how finely made. Prima said it would be inappropriate, and furthermore might get mud on their sheets, and that was the end of that. Sometimes Septima thought Prima might be a little too obsessed with propriety, but she was the eldest, and in the absence of a command from their father (which they would have taken offense at anyway, and both singly and together wheedled and pouted and thrown tantrums until it was taken back) her word was law. 

Septima was seventeen at the time, and just realizing what being one of the indistinguishable middle sisters meant when it came to the boys (young men, that sounded better, the well-hidden romantic in her sighed) she watched from beneath her thick, soot-dark lashes. After all, her lashes were no thicker or darker than any of her eleven sisters', and if her eyes were a soft, bottomless black, well, Prima's were the blue of ice in the dead of winter, or perfectly forged steel, and Duodecima's were the warm brown of a startled doe's, and even Quinta's, behind their glass shields, were the sharp green of fresh-cut grass. Septima was beautiful enough for any man to count her a prize, even if she were not her father's daughter, and a princess with a dower large enough to make a cross-eyed, warty hag seem attractive, but she was only the seventh of twelve impossibly beautiful princesses. No one would ever see her for her own beauty, or come close enough to know her for herself. 

Prima was, in her own way, rather pleased by the curse. They were twelve beautiful princesses, and it was almost appropriate that they be cursed; it suited Prima's importance that some evil force should choose them as the symbol of everything good and pure in the world to be oppressed. All well and good for her, Septima thought crossly when she heard their father's proclamation regarding the reward for uncursing his daughters; whatever man managed to figure it out would clearly choose either the eldest or the youngest, and as the youngest was _twelve_ , unless he was a disgusting pedophile he would choose the eldest. Of course, none of them had counted on how long it would take for someone to show up who could actually discover the terms of their curse, but that was neither here nor there. 

Meanwhile, Septima would never see sixteen again, and her chances of finding a husband who even recognized her as an individual rather than one-twelfth of one, let alone liked her, were even smaller now that she was one-twelfth of a cursed conglomerate. Decima relished the aura of mystery surrounding all twelve of them, and took to wearing veils and dark, shroud-like gowns, even though she should have been by then long past her "magic" phase, and Duodecima, damn her brainless brown eyes, became only lovelier and more perfectly in distress as the years passed and brought her ever-closer to an acceptable age to be rescued, wedded and bedded. Undecima, trapped between the two of them, grew pale and listless almost out of self-defense. Fortunately she was already somewhat wispily blond, which was nicely complemented by her now-pallid complexion, and her lack of energy only made her more interestingly cursed, or at least a less irritating brand of pathetic. 

Of all twelve of the dancing princesses, Septima might have distinguished herself not as the best dancer (Prima had the most experience, and so could claim the title) or the most natural (Duodecima took naturally to almost everything, and dancing was no exception) but as the one who most enjoyed herself. They were all good dancers; they were princesses, and nothing else would be acceptable. And of course their dance masters had always agreed with their father that they were the most graceful girls in twelve kingdoms worth of dancers, and hardly needed instruction, etc., etc., but Septima had always been the first to have her dancing slippers on, and the last to reluctantly abandon her dance lessons for music and language and art (never politics, although Prima picked up a bit of it from sitting at their father's side during councils; the rest of the sisters were firmly opposed to learning about how to run the kingdom which provided them with a never-ending supply of dancing slippers since, after all, they would marry princes or at least dukes, who would presumably be able to take care of such things without their wives' assistance). So aside from Prima, who appreciated the propriety of the curse, and Decima, who liked the romance of it all, Septima minded the curse the least of all her sisters. 

Still, entire years of dancing silently, all night, every night, might grow slightly dull for any dancing enthusiast. On her nineteenth birthday, Septima decided that what she needed, besides a rest for her understandably weary feet, was a change. So she looked up at the startling pretty face of her partner (and he _was_ very pretty; they all were, the twelve dancing princes, and more similar than the sisters, so it had taken Septima several weeks to make certain that they even had assigned partners, and were not simply paired off randomly with whichever prince was closest) and remarked lightly, "I appreciate the drama inherent in our situation, but I do wish the string quartet would play a gigue or a bourre. All this waltzing begins to wear my patience thin." 

Because she was watching very carefully, she caught the brief spark of humor in his eyes (which were dark brown, almost as dark as her own) before it was snuffed out. "Perhaps a pavane or two would provide some variation, and yet suit your highness's dignity?" he suggested mildly. 

"I feel that our highnesses' dignity is one thing we have too much of here," she replied tartly. "What we need is a stirring peasant dance, a bit of sweat and several ridiculous looking jumps."

He stifled a laugh at that, and steered her closer to the ragged-edged shadows cast by flickering torches in the corners of the dance floor. "It would perhaps be best," he advised her in a manner so disinterested it almost managed to not sound like advice, but only a bored observation, "not to show such... mmm, _enthusiasm_ for discourse. In front of the others." 

She hummed back her agreement, and for a few minutes she kept her attention on her feet, though they little needed it. When she judged enough time had passed, she looked back up at her prince. He smiled. "My name is Septimus," he said quietly. "It means - "

"Seventh son." She bowed her head in the closest gesture she could make to a curtsy with one hand in his and the other at his waist. "I am Septima. Seventh daughter," she added needlessly. 

From the way his smile twisted at the edges, she could tell he was not unaware of the irony of their situation. "I suppose we truly are made for each other, then," he commented. The laughter they did not voice aloud held no humor. 

*

The next night, Septima danced as though her slippers were made of lead, until she felt Septimus look down at her, puzzled. "Who would you be if you were not Septimus?" she asked idly, tossing her black hair back with a careless shake. 

"'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,'" he misquoted. She smiled at the surface meaning, and deliberately ignored the undercurrent. _Call me what you wish; I am Septimus still._

"I always thought Romeo a rather tragically unattractive name. Mercutio, perhaps, or Tybalt..." 

"Do you think me then the prince of cats?" Septimus spun her out and drew her back to murmur, "Or do you fancy yourself Juliet?" 

*

"Tristan?" 

He snorted. "Do you actually _like_ the name Iseult?" 

*

"Helen?" 

She laughed. "Flatterer." 

*

"Galahad." 

"No shining icon of purity I. Mordred would be more apt." 

*

"Penelope." 

"And must I wait ten years for you, and ten again, until your wandering love brings you home once more?" 

He smiled, and pressed a kiss to her hand. "Not if I have any power to prevent it." 

*

"Nero?" 

He looked at her flatly, and said nothing. 

*

"You've been quiet all night," Septima said lightly. "Don't you recall that it's your turn?" 

"Persephone," he replied abruptly. 

Her eyebrows lifted. "Perhaps." They danced on in silence, each lost in his or her own thoughts. Septima broke the quiet first. "And will you bring me a pomegranate, Septimus? I am not afraid to eat the fruit of your underworld. I would stay here with you, if you would keep me." 

"There are... rules, to this game we play," he said at last. "Many, I cannot tell you; some, indeed, I do not know. But this I may say: twelve years of nights we must dance before I may keep you by my side through the daylight hours of your world, even should my will or yours wish the contrary." 

"And if the curse is broken?" 

"Then it is broken, and you will come to this dark palace nevermore." 

She sighed. "Well, what will be will be. And twelve years is not such a span... we have danced more than half away already." 

"With you as my partner," he said, in a courtly manner, "the years fly by as though a-wing." 

They spoke no more of games. 

*

"Septimus." 

He glanced down. "Yes." 

"Come back with me. My world is not so terrible, is it? Will the air above this everdark land poison you, will my sun make you fall into eternal sleep?"

"I may accompany you no farther than the shores of the lake," he said, puzzled. "But wherefore do you ask this of me now?" 

She looked up and met his eyes, unafraid. "This quester... the soldier. I think he will free us." 

"Yes." 

She scowled, impatient. "And you do nothing?" 

"I told you, there are rules. If he has met the conditions, and what has foiled the others stops not this last, then we may hinder him no further. We too feel the end draw near, but there is nothing I may do to halt or slow it." 

"And I am to be freed, never to see you more?" she asked bitterly. "I would wed you or no one, Septimus, and I would sooner you than no one." 

"Fear not, dear one," he murmured. "If you are to come here no more, then I shall come to you. Look for me, when the soldier sets you free of your dancing shoes." 

*

Septima listened with half an ear to the old soldier's recital of the events of the past three evenings, identical save for her conversations to the past nine years of her life. No outside observer would have known, but she felt the infinitesimal sag of relief in the posture of her sisters. _Over, finally over_ , their skirts whispered with every tiny shift. 

Septima did not relax. She was looking. 

He chose Prima, as she had always known he would. When her sister stepped forward, her eyes, the color of ice or steel but much sharper, veiled beneath her lashes, to give her hand to the man who had won her, Septima barely felt the satisfaction of seeing proud, beautiful Prima to be wed to a common soldier. She was looking, but Septimus was nowhere to be seen. 

*

Their father threw a ball that night, in celebration. Septima only just barely stopped herself from remarking on the irony to Octava, who would not have appreciated it: that they should celebrate their liberation from dancing by dancing yet another night away. 

"Forgive me, but I have had my fill of dancing," she began to say, when a stranger tugged her sleeve. She turned to face him, and fell silent. 

"Persephone no longer," Septimus greeted her with a smile. "Will you not dance with me?" 

"With you," she said simply, "I would dance forever." 

*

Prima married her soldier, Sexta and Secunda neighboring princes, and Decima a count who fancied himself a poet. Tertia, ever the most practical, chose an elderly, childless king, and then maneuvered him into choosing her. Duodecima wed the captain of the guard. Septima might have amused herself by contemplating the matches her sisters had made or would make, but she instead made herself conspicuous by dancing continuously and deliriously happily with her own husband-to-be, the only heir to a small but wealthy duchy. She never asked Septimus how precisely he had managed to acquire so convenient a father. 

They were wed soon after Prima, with less pomp and perhaps more joy, and retired to Septimus' father's palace. Septima returned only seldom to her father's court, but Septimus' wealth was sufficient to engage year-round a fine quartet of musicians. Sometimes, Septima simply listened, and smiled, and sometimes, when she felt like it (but only when she felt like it, for she had danced unwillingly for nine long years), even in the middle of dinner, she rose from her seat, her husband at her side, and danced. 

 


End file.
